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Barclays’ profits fell 18 per cent in the first quarter and the bank had to delay a promised £1bn stock buyback as a jump in litigation and conduct provisions overshadowed a surge in trading revenue. Net income fell to £1.4bn, down from £1.7bn in the same period last year, the British bank said on Thursday.

J Sainsbury warned underlying profit would be lower than expected this year amid “significant external pressures and uncertainties” including cost inflation and a squeeze on household incomes. The UK’s second-largest supermarket on Thursday forecast underlying profit of between £630mn and £690mn. Analysts’ consensus forecast, as compiled by the group, had been for £703mn. Chief executive

Good morning and welcome to Europe Express. Russia fired the first warning shots yesterday in a looming energy war when it halted gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria. But the EU called the Kremlin’s bluff: it can use reverse flows, alternative supplies and storage to help the two countries. The European Commission insisted that other

Good morning. Wall Street rallied yesterday, then faded. Sentiment is poor, and surprisingly solid results from Facebook (still boycotting “Meta” around here) after the bell seem unlikely to change that. But readers have suggested plenty of good reasons to be cheerful: it’s spring, Trump is out of the White House, and Russia is losing. Keep

Every now and again, a news reporter will encounter a story where none of the explanations provided makes sense. Instinct will suggest a more complex and interesting story is lurking in the tapestry of obfuscations. Dead in the Water is a triumphant example of what happens when editors give reporters the time to pull at

The writer is the founder and managing director of capital markets think-tank New Financial In the latest round of self-flagellation over the state of the UK stock market and the City of London, it is worth remembering the words of American writer HL Mencken that “for every complex problem there is an answer that is

Twitter is rushing to reassure advertisers that it will remain a safe place for brands after Elon Musk takes over the company, as the campaign groups that organised a Facebook advertising boycott in 2020 warn that the Tesla chief’s focus on freedom of speech could increase toxicity and abuse. The San Francisco-based company has written

The UK’s new online safety bill threatens to weigh down small businesses with new costs, according to the new chief executive of a group of online watchdogs which are gaining increased powers to compel tech companies to protect users on the internet. Gill Whitehead, the first head of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF), a

One thing to start: The UK Serious Fraud Office deployed investigators to sites connected with Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance on Wednesday to demand documents as it steps up its probe into the industrialist’s empire. A Tiger cub risks losing his stripes In May 2020, a scathing report from short seller Muddy Waters alleged Chinese online

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. Russia raised the spectre of nuclear war this week as it struggles to make headway in Ukraine. How seriously should this threat be taken and can Vladimir Putin rely on his friendship with China’s Xi Jinping?

It barely took half an hour to gravely wound the chances of an alliance on France’s far right that could turn the movement into a serious player in government instead of a token opposition presence. On Sunday night after Marine Le Pen lost the presidential election to Emmanuel Macron but achieved a historic score for

Accounting firm RSM has bought out most of the shares in the business held by its former UK partners, consolidating the power of its new management team two years after the entire board was ousted following an investor coup. The UK’s seventh-largest accounting firm by revenue was thrown into chaos in 2019, when its chief

Throughout her career as an economist, Lise Vesterlund has been struck by the number of male colleagues who were exceptionally good at teaching and writing research papers, yet “somehow when it comes to doing any kind of service work, they [have some defect] that somehow makes them never serve on a committee”. So the work

It might seem like business-as-usual in the post-pandemic western art world, but some of the alternative models initiated during the lockdowns are finding their footing. One is the Fair Art Fair (FAF), an app launched last September by the London artist-gallerist Stacie McCormick, with some Arts Council backing. Despite its name, the platform operates more

Rishi Sunak has hinted that he could perform a U-turn and introduce a windfall tax on UK oil and gas companies unless they ramp up investment in new energy projects. The UK chancellor has long argued against such a levy, which is backed by the Labour party, on the grounds that it would deter investment

Facebook parent Meta posted its slowest revenue growth since going public, but its share price jumped as profits held up better than expected in the face of several headwinds including the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The company booked $7.5bn in profit in the January-March quarter, down 21 per cent from the same period

Ministers are to unveil the biggest overhaul of broadcasting rules in almost 20 years, handing the BBC, ITV and a privatised Channel 4 far greater bargaining power with digital TV platforms such as Sky, Amazon and Samsung. Nadine Dorries, culture secretary, will on Thursday publish long-awaited plans to privatise Channel 4, revamp television regulations for

Liz Truss, UK foreign secretary, has warned China to learn lessons from the west’s robust economic response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying Beijing will face consequences if it does not “play by the rules”. Truss, in a hawkish set-piece speech, argued that the Ukraine crisis had delivered a salutary lesson to the west and

Britain’s Conservative party has confirmed it is investigating reports that a male MP watched pornography on his mobile phone while sitting in the House of Commons chamber. The allegations, first reported in the Mirror and Sun newspapers on Wednesday, were discussed during a meeting of Tory MPs on Tuesday in which female members shared their

European stocks were volatile on Wednesday, following a bruising session on Wall Street where the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite share index posted its biggest single-day decline since September 2020. The regional Stoxx 600 share index lost almost 1 per cent cent in early dealings before recovering to trade 0.4 per cent higher. Exporters were boosted by

McKinsey’s managing partner has pushed back against allegations that the consultancy breached conflict of interest rules by advising opioids producers on how to “turbocharge” sales while also working for US health regulators seeking to tackle a deadly painkiller overdose epidemic. Bob Sternfels told a US congressional committee on Wednesday that he regretted McKinsey did not